A retired Calgary couple who were attacked by pirates during a sailing trip in Honduras two weeks ago said they're grateful to be alive after the terrifying incident.
Loretta Reinholdt, 54, and Andy Wasinger, 46, were on their second day into a trip from Belize to the Honduran island of Roatan in which they were learning to sail on a 17-meter-long hired boat with a captain when they were attacked.
Four men with guns and knives boarded the sailboat and took all of their money after waving down the sailboat by asking for gas.
'They were yelling,' Reinholdt, a former nurse, told CBC. 'They were demanding more money. They didn't believe we only had that amount. And the more angry they got, the more scary it was.
'And they actually had me, pulling my hair and a knife on my throat, demanding more money from the captain.'
Wasinger, a former computer programmer, added: 'I knew we had to comply with the pirates and not be heroes.'
After the terrifying hold-up, the pirates pushed the sailboat to the shoreline of a remote beach in Jeanette Kawas National Park, cut the main sail and tore out the engine wire, leaving the couple and their captain stranded.
They also took gasoline, the radio and drinking water from the boat.
The couple and captain made SOS messages with branches along a park trail, which was discovered by hikers four days later.
'It was great. It was one of the best moments of my life, I think. I was ecstatic,' Wasinger told CTV News. 'I know we can go through anything in life now after this situation. We are a lot closer as a couple and we live life every day as if it is our last.'
During their time in the jungle, they survived on rainwater, peanut butter and cheese and make a make-shift tent to stay in until they were saved.
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